


An (Un)Fortunate Lily Maid

by onecalledkatie (celluloiddreams)



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22261162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloiddreams/pseuds/onecalledkatie
Summary: Post Season 3 one-shot.  Takes place four months after the 3.10 finale.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 25
Kudos: 339





	An (Un)Fortunate Lily Maid

Nearly four months after she first stepped into the next chapter of her life, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert was finally back home. Even though it was only for a few short weeks, she was grateful that would be able to spend more than one or two fleeting nights in her dear gable room. Charlottetown was only a short train ride away, a fact that she was continuously grateful for because whenever missing her dear family simply became too much to bear, she’d use some of her travel fund to return home.

Not that she didn’t love Queen’s and all it afforded her.

In fact, she enjoyed it far more than she imagined she would. Her homesickness was curbed for the most part due to the fact that most of her former classmates were there as well. Most of the time, she could imagine that they were all back in the old schoolhouse, learning about things well outside the standardized curriculum from one of her greatest inspirations: her dear, Miss Stacy.

Inadvertently, she’d be pulled from her reverie by the ramblings of one professor or another. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her teachers. They were all well-esteemed in their own right, but what she wouldn’t give to turn the clock back a year—if only for a day.

The girls had flourished during those first few months in Charlottetown. There had been a few minor tiffs amongst them over the last few months, which was natural given the fact that they were suddenly living with one another. Whenever an argument popped up, Anne found herself grateful that she and Diana had yet to have any sort of conflict. Perhaps their separation last spring afforded them the opportunity to see the bigger picture. Anne was pleasantly surprised that Diana wasn’t bothered at all by her desire to ‘burn the midnight oil’, so to speak. Anne spent most of her nights studying, reading, or—whenever the inspiration struck—writing. Diana told her that she felt an odd sense of comfort in the soft glow of Anne’s lamp. 

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, being back at Green Gables was strange. She was so used to sharing her room with her best friend that the last few nights without her were a little too quiet. She was used to the girls’ raucous giggling and constant plotting on ways to skirt around Mrs. Blackmore’s rules. To her credit, Anne abstained from most of their antics. She had changed. She wasn’t the same girl who snuck out in the middle of the night to dance around a fire or drink moonshine with the rest of her class. No, she was too preoccupied with making the best marks she could so that, hopefully, she’d earn a scholarship and alleviate the financial burden of her education from her adopted parents.

Not to mention the fact that staying busy also helped her to miss _him_ less.

Toronto wasn’t nearly as far away as Paris, but it might as well have been.

Anne wrote to him nearly every other day and given the frequency of the letters she received from him, she supposed that he had found a way to maintain the same pace. She told him all about her quest to find her lineage and all that she discovered about her biological parents in the book Marilla and Matthew retrieved from Mrs. Thomas. In return, Gilbert told her all about his studies, his new group of friends, and how Dr. Emily Oak had become his mentor. Whenever Anne visited home, she’d report back to Gilbert on how Bash and Delphine were doing—although she was certain that he and Bash frequently wrote to one another. She kept him up to date on all of the misadventures of their friends and assured him that she managed to stay out of mischief—for the most part.

It was almost as if he were there with her, but—she constantly had to remind herself—he wasn’t. In fact, while she still had several follow-up questions from that fateful day outside of her boarding house, she had only ever asked a select few. The most vital ones, the ones that had practically driven her mad, she never inquired about. What if it had all been a dream? She had pinched herself in the midst of it all, but had that been enough to ensure that her imagination hadn't invaded reality? He never once said that he loved her, only that he had feelings for her. Winifred was certain that his feelings for Anne were classified as love—she had even used that exact word in her explanation to Anne—but hearing it from someone else wasn’t the same as hearing it directly from the source. He hadn’t once spoken of his feelings in any of his letters, so Anne held back, took his lead, and kept her correspondence light.

After all, they would be miles apart for God only knew how long. A lot could change in that time.

Perhaps, it already had.

Frustrated with her current train of thought, Anne left the warmth of her dear Green Gables. Maybe the frigid December air would help to clear her mind. Matthew and Marilla had gone to Carmody for the day to run errands. Diana and her family were out of town. Gilbert wouldn’t be home for the holidays and the LaCroix family had gone to Charlottetown for a few days so that Constance and Jocelyn could see Delphine.

A sudden gust of wind immediately sent a chill down her spine; nevertheless, she persisted in her quest to visit her beloved Lake of Shining Waters. The pond belonged to the Barry’s, but Anne often escaped to the pond to seek inspiration and get out of her own mind for a little while. She had hoped Christmas in Avonlea would be so hectic that she wouldn’t have time to miss Gilbert Blythe, but everywhere she went, there he was.

Only, he wasn’t.

She half expected the pond to be frozen over by now but was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by its shimmering waters. She greeted the water with a soft smile. “At least you haven’t changed.” It had been a relatively mild winter thus far. The temperature hadn’t sunk far below freezing until just a few days earlier when the first snow of the season hit her beloved island.

As Anne walked around the pond, she recalled the first time she beheld its beauty. It prompted her to pinch herself for the first of many times that day. She couldn’t believe that she could ever live near such an enchanting place. Even now, as she watched the water shimmer against the snow-covered ground, she stood in awe of this little spot. As she made her way toward the Barry’s small dock, her gaze shifted to the small dory that rested right on the shore. “My one regret,” she sighed as she walked toward it. She was to be Elaine that unfortunate day, but Mrs. Barry stopped them from acting out Tennyson’s tragical tale. 

She bit the inside of her cheek as she glanced at the water before looking back at the small boat. Granted, it would be more fun if the girls were with her, but Anne was well aware of the fact that she was only allowed a few more years of adolescent fun before she’d finally be forced to grow up. Even now, she constantly heard that she looked grown up. Sometimes someone would remark that she _was_ grown up. “I’m only 16,” she muttered as she inched closer to the small boat. “Maturation doesn’t happen overnight.” This could very well be the only chance she had to portray the lily maid. No one was there to stop her this time.

Her mind made up, she dusted off the small layer of snow in the boat before she nudged it closer to the water. She shivered as she removed the blanket she had wrapped around herself and laid it down on the boat. She glanced at her coat. Elaine certainly did not float down to Camelot in a coat. “It’ll only be for a few minutes,” she rationalized before she unbuttoned it and sat it on the post next to the dory. She carefully stepped onto the boat and sat at the edge. She pushed herself off of the shore before she laid down, eager to coast along the pond.

The gray sky above her darkened as she stared at the clouds above. It would be dark soon, but the train back from Carmody wouldn’t be at Bright River for a few hours yet. 

A few minutes into her trek, she slowly closed her eyes. This was exactly what her soul needed: a moment of peace mixed in with a childish flight of fancy. She smiled softly. Perhaps, she didn’t have to grow up quite yet. Just as she took a breath of that sweet Avonlea air, the boat tilted, and a rush of cold water suddenly splashed her from behind.

Anne’s eyes shot open and she immediately sat upright. Her eyes widened when she realized that the boat must have had a hole in the bottom. The small dory was quickly sinking and she, a mediocre swimmer at best, was in the middle of the pond. The LaCroix’s were gone, the Barry’s were gone, and her adopted parents were out of town. There was no one else around for miles. 

She desperately tried to row herself near one of the edges, but she was so anxious that the only oar she had slipped from her nearly frozen fingers and fell to the murky depths below. Without another thought, she tried to row with her hands, to no avail. The boat was simply taking on too much water.

Was this it? Would this be her untimely end—just as she was on the cusp of the rest of her life? She briefly hoped Marilla would remember her request to place pink roses on her grave. She wondered if her loved ones would cry, would remember her fondly in the coming years. She wondered if Gilbert would be able to come to the funeral, or if he’d even want to. 

When the boat finally dipped below the water line, Anne began to flail around in the frigid water. As she gasped for air, her thoughts turned to her family. As badly as she wanted to meet her biological parents, she had hoped she’d be able to spend a little more time with her adopted ones first. Then, just before her frozen body succumbed to the pull of the lake she had loved for so long, she heard an all too familiar voice call out to her. She tried to focus her gaze on the rapidly approaching figure, but couldn’t find the energy to. It was all too much. When she heard the sweet sound of her name on the caller’s lips once more, she smiled despite her situation. 

At least she got to hear his voice one last time.

* * *

She wasn’t sure how long she had been submerged under the freezing water. It felt like days, but knew it was merely a few seconds before she felt a rush of air fill her lungs once again. She gasped before she began to cough up the water from the pond. She felt herself glide across the water, her frozen limbs securely wrapped around her savior. Her hair was a drenched, a tangled mess that shielded her vision. She focused her attention on breathing, on trying not to choke on the water that she continued to cough up. She couldn’t feel much, only the sharp pang of the freezing water as it pierced her body. 

How could she have been so reckless?

By the time she reached the shore, she supposed that at least half of her body had gone completely numb from the water. The other half ached from the battle she nearly lost with the pond she so dearly loved. She couldn’t feel the coldness from the blanket of snow underneath her. She couldn’t feel her fingers at all, but somehow managed to swipe the hair out of her face as she tried to force air through her lungs. She focused her vision on the dark grey sky above. Then, she heard her name once more. She turned her head toward the sound.

Had she actually died?

She wouldn’t be able to feel it even if she possessed the energy to pinch herself, so she merely stared up at the concerned face that hovered over her.

“Anne, Anne, can you hear me? Anne, please…nod if you can understand me.”

She slowly nodded, still unsure if she was in Avonlea or if she had been ushered into the next world. She never thought heaven would look just like Avonlea, but how else would it explain the presence of someone who should be a thousand miles away?

“I’ll be right back,” he assured her before he sprinted away. Anne shifted her attention back up toward the sky as she tried to steady her rapidly beating heart. 

By the time he returned, she was able to move her lips. As he wrapped his jacket, as well as a blanket, around her, she tried to focus on her words. “W-W-W-What are y-y-you d-d-d-oing-g-g—”

He gave her a small smile before he slowly helped her up. When she stumbled, he made the decision to pick her up and carry her. “I could ask you the same question,” he answered as he made his way toward the carriage. “You need to get warm before you catch pneumonia.”

“Not at—not at G-G-Green Gables,” she huffed, frustrated that she couldn’t seem to control her stammer at the moment. “I don’t want…Matthew…Marilla.”

Gilbert nodded as he helped her in the buggy. He understood what she meant without needing to explain further. She didn’t want them to see her so disheveled because then she’d be forced to explain how she ended up in the pond in the first place. “We’ll go back to my place then.”

Anne shivered in response. 

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” he responded before he grabbed the reigns and ushered them toward the Blythe-LaCroix farm.

* * *

Anne had regained feeling in most of her fingers and toes by the time they reached Gilbert’s house. She was still freezing and drenched head to toe, but maybe she wouldn’t end up with frost bite.

She managed to get into the house without any assistance from the concerned medical student. As soon as he closed the door behind him, Gilbert hurried toward the fireplace. “We need to get you warm,” he commented before he turned back to look at her. He noticed the state of her clothing and took a deep breath. “You need to change out of those clothes. They’re soaked.”

Anne glanced down at her appearance. “But Matthew and Marilla, I—”

“Just…long enough to dry them off,” he clarified. “Follow me.”

Anne followed him wordlessly up the stairs. She had been in his house dozens of times, but never once had she ventured upstairs. Although she couldn’t be certain, she had a feeling exactly where she was headed. At the mere thought, she shivered.

She lingered in the doorway, even as Gilbert went into—she presumed—his room. She watched curiously as he pulled a few things from a couple of drawers. “These will probably be a little loose,” he began as he gestured to the pants in his hands, “So, you can wear these with them,” he reached for a pair of suspenders. “I…um…if you don’t know how to…” he stopped his movements when he realized just what he was trying to say. Dear God, was he about to suggest that he could help her put his suspenders on? He laughed nervously.

“I know,” she answered just as bashfully. “This wouldn’t…um…this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve worn men’s clothes.”

Gilbert’s head snapped up to look at her. “What?”

“Um…it was two years ago…when you came back from Trinidad with Bash and my hair was…” she sighed. “You know what? Long story…it doesn’t matter.”

Gilbert was definitely curious about what sort of adventure led her to wear men’s clothing. To be honest, he wanted to know everything he could about her. He had been curious about the redhead since the day they met, and now, nearly four years later, she still seemed like an enigma most of the time. “Ok. Well, I’ll…leave you...to it…I guess.” He handed her the clothes and gave her a small smile before he walked out of the room and back down the stairs.

Anne looked down at the clothes and sighed. How did she always end up in these predicaments?

* * *

Even though she had never worn suspenders before, she figured out how to attach them very quickly, much to her relief. She simply had no other option. If she couldn’t figure it out, then she would have found something else to cinch the waist of the slightly-too-large-for-her pants. There was no way she’d ask Gilbert to help her put on clothes—even if those clothes were his. _‘Oh, if Marillia saw this,’_ she cringed before she looked up at herself in the mirror. She smirked as she slowly examined her appearance. The clothes were too big on her, but still, she couldn’t help but to admire the fashion. Miss Stacy was the only other woman she had seen in suspenders and trousers before and while Anne admired the look, she knew she’d never get away with that—at least, while she was still at Queen’s. Her smile widened as she turned around to get a full look at herself. Miss Jeannie did say that trousers were the ‘it’ fashion in Paris. Perhaps the style would make its way overseas and it wouldn’t be so abnormal for a woman to wear them. Even though she couldn’t forget whose clothes they belonged to, she still found them quite comfortable. 

As she helplessly tried to tame her tangled locks into a single loose braid, she wondered how long it would take for her clothes to dry. She wasn’t sure if Matthew and Marilla were back yet. If so, she knew it would still be a little while before they would begin to worry about her. Still, she hadn’t seen Gilbert since that day outside of her boarding house and she wasn’t entirely sure what the rules were anymore when it came to their relationship.

Besides, she hadn’t expected to see him at all until next spring. She thought she still had a few more months of self-doubt to process before she was forced to pretend that she hadn’t thought about those stolen moments every single day since he left. She reached for her wet clothes. If her need for adventure hadn’t gotten in the way, she’d be curled up with a book in the safe confines of her room instead of sporting Gilbert Blythe’s clothes in his bedroom.

 _‘You’ll learn one day,’_ she told herself as she walked toward the door. Before she left, she spun around and took one last look around his room. _‘Yes,’_ she concluded, _‘This is exactly how I imagined it.’_

She shifted her clothes under her arms as she descended the stairs. When she entered the parlor, she realized that Gilbert’s back was toward her as he stoked the fire. “Thank you.”

At the sound of her voice, Gilbert stood up and turned around. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead, could only take in Anne’s appearance. He had thought her beautiful since the day he first saw her, but there was something about the way she looked in that moment—clad in his own clothes, no less—that nearly took his breath away. It was the first moment he allowed himself any amount of time to process the fact that they were sharing the same space for the first time since that frantic day in Charlottetown. He had imagined their reunion going a hundred different ways, but never once had he conjured this up. 

He cleared his throat as he forced himself to look down at the clothes in her arms. “I can go…hang those up.”

Anne took one look at her clothes before she shook her head. “No, no…I can do it.”

“Oh, ok. Well, I’m making some tea, so maybe I should go…see if that’s…if that’s ready.”

Anne watched him curiously as he practically stumbled toward the kitchen. It was equal parts amusing and endearing to see Gilbert Blythe quite literally falling over himself. She smirked as her gaze fell back to her clothes. She could get used to seeing him like that.

What she wouldn’t be getting used to any time soon would be Gilbert Blythe seeing her undergarments. She inwardly groaned as she began to hang up her clothes. There was no way around it. She needed to dry her clothes and the quickest way to do that was to hang them by the fire. She tried to hide her corset underneath her dress the best way she could. She wasn’t sure if they were courting, but even if they were, she was certain that he most certainly wasn’t permitted to see her corset, even if she wasn’t wearing it.

Her cheeks reddened at the thought.

Just as she sat her shoes in front of the fireplace, she heard him re-enter the room. She brushed a loose tendril away from her eyes before she took the offered teacup in his hands.

He silently gestured toward the couch, but once Anne sat down, instead of sitting next to her, Gilbert sat on the chair in the corner of the room.

Anne tried to mask her disappointment. Maybe he wasn’t that excited to see her after all? She furrowed her eyebrows as her mind immediately jumped to several different conclusions. Maybe she had over-romanticized what happened between them four months ago? After all, he failed to mention it in any of his letters.

And now she was sitting in in the same room with him—alone—and in his clothes.

Unable to handle her spiraling train of thought for another moment, she looked down at her teacup. “So, why didn’t you tell me that you were going to come back for Christmas?”

He chuckled before he took a sip of his tea. “So, how did you end up in the middle of the pond?”

Anne cringed. She should have known that was coming. Some things never changed. He always found a way to see her at her absolute worst. At the same time, she knew that he was well aware of who she was and the fact that catastrophe seemed to follow her in spades. “A few years ago, Diana, Ruby, Jane, and I were going to re-enact Elaine’s final voyage from ‘Lancelot and Elaine’, but just before we could, Mrs. Barry came out and…we weren’t able to.” She paused to take a sip of her tea. “Matthew and Marilla were in Carmody, I knew the Barry’s were out of town and with Bash and Delly being gone, I was…bored. I remembered that I never got to act it out and when I saw that the pond wasn’t frozen over, I decided that…it was now or never.” She turned her attention to the fire in front of her. “There must have been a hole at the bottom.”

“And…it sunk.”

She nodded. “And while Matthew tried to teach me how to swim…once…I’m afraid I’m not very good at it.”

“You can’t expect to be an expert at something after one lesson.”

She chuckled. “Well, you know me…”

He nodded with a smirk before his smile completely melted into a look of concern. “Anne, you could have died out there. If I hadn’t—”

“I know,” she calmly interrupted as she stared at her teacup. She didn’t want to think about what would have happened had he not been there. “Thank you…for…for saving me. I had already accepted my fate and…wait.” She furrowed her eyebrows as she looked up at him. “Why were you there?”

“Well, I was…on my way to Green Gables, actually,” was his sheepish reply.

There it was again. That sheepish little smile that immediately sent a thrill down her spine. “I thought you were going to stay in Toronto until the term was over?”

He sighed before he sat his cup down on the end table next to the chair. “That was the plan, initially, but I…” he trailed off.

Anne swallowed as she sat her cup down on the table in front of her. Was this it? Did he come all this way to let her down, to insist that what happened that beautiful day in Charlottetown was merely a flight of fancy and nothing more? “You…” she trailed on in an attempt to prompt his response.

“Thanks to the Barry’s, we had a…fruitful harvest. I was able to use some of the extra money to come back for a few weeks before the spring term begins.”

“That’s great. I mean…I’m sure you missed Bash and Delly.”

He slowly nodded. “But…they weren’t the only ones.” He cut his eyes up to her to gauge her reaction. Four months. Four long months without her. God. How did he ever make it a year?

Anne didn’t need for him to elaborate. The look in his eyes said it all and she was fairly certain that it mirrored that of her own. She, the girl who not a year earlier swore that her destiny was to be the bride of adventure, now saw a completely different future unfolding before her very eyes. Still, he had never been so open with his emotions in any of his letters. She cleared her throat. “Oh?”

Propriety be damned, he couldn’t take it anymore. He stood up only to move to the couch and sit next to her. He hesitated for a brief moment before he placed his left hand over both of hers, which were neatly folded in her lap. “You have no idea how much I missed you.”

Anne looked down at their joined hands before she looked back up at him. “Why didn’t you tell me? I kept…I kept hoping you would, but after a while, I just assumed that we were…that it…that we…weren’t.”

“I had hoped you would, especially after the letter I left in your room…when you didn’t mention it, I thought—”

“What letter?”

“The day before harvest. I stopped by Green Gables, but no one was there, so I…I wrote you a letter. You told me that you got the pen back so I—”

Anne grimaced. “Oh. Well, I…I didn’t read the letter.”

Gilbert took a deep breath. Months. He had spent months worrying about what he had said, if it had been too much too soon, if he scared her away. He well remembered what Diana told him that day on the train, but he had yet to hear it from Anne. What if Diana had been wrong this entire time? What if she didn’t reciprocate the feelings he had for her? Now, to find out that she never read the letter in the first place? It was a lot to take in at once. “Why,” was the only word he was able to utter.

It was Anne’s turn to grow sheepish as she glanced back at the fire. “I…um…I thought you had written it to tell me about your engagement to Winifred and I…I got mad because I thought…I figured with news that big that you would have…told me yourself instead of writing…a letter.” She watched the flames dance along the log and wondered what the contents held. “After I tore it up, I threw it out the window. Then…my curiosity got the better of me and I…I tried to find the pieces. From what I could find and piece back together, I assumed that you…that you two were…and then I bumped into Winifred the day you…and she told me what happened.”

He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. He had been on the receiving end of Anne’s temper on more than one occasion, but never, in all of the days when he tried to rationalize the reason why she never responded, had he imagined that she never read it. “Oh.”

“But…I’m willing to listen if you…if you remember what it said.”

He looked up at her. When he wrote it, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever see her again. Now, it was four months later, and there they were. He didn’t want to scare her, especially because he wasn’t certain how she felt. Besides, it’d be years before he could ever offer her anything. He shook his head as a playful smirk crossed his features. “That’ll teach you to rip up my letters.”

Anne’s eyes widened. “Gilbert Blythe! I wasn’t the only one who failed to receive a letter. I wrote you one as well.”

“That I never received,” he argued. “You had mine in your hands.” He waited a beat. Even though he knew more about her letter than she knew about his, he still wanted to hear it from her. “What did yours say?”

She wasn’t sure what Diana told him. Her bosom friend remained tight-lipped about the conversation she had with Gilbert that day, but still, she didn’t want to go back to Queen’s not knowing where she stood with Gilbert Blythe and given the number of people they would see over the coming weeks, she figured this would be their only opportunity to speak so freely. “I…I apologized.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “For what?”

“For…for being confused…that night at the ruins. I was just…shocked and…drunk and I couldn’t…think and then the girls pulled me away and I—”

“It’s ok,” he assured her. “My timing wasn’t the best.”

“Mine neither,” she admitted. 

“Anything else,” he asked hopefully.

She looked into his eyes for a long moment. She could feel her palms clam up and knew that everything hinged upon his reaction to her next words. “I said that I wasn’t confused anymore and that…that I love you.”

Even though they had kissed, had admitted that they had feelings for one another, had written to one another every other day since their separation, the joy he felt at hearing her say the actual words was indescribable. 

Still, she wrote that letter months ago. So much could have changed between then and now. “And…and now?”

Anne searched his eyes for only a moment before she spoke. “I’m still in love with you. More than when I wrote that—” Her words were abruptly cut off as he pressed his lips against hers. 

How many times had she thought about this very moment over the last four months? How long had she fretted that it wouldn’t be the same, that the memory couldn’t possibly hold up to reality, but now, after having had a very real brush with death, Anne knew that it was her memory that had completely failed her. This was so much more than she could possibly remember. The way she felt, the surge of electricity that soared through her veins. She could feel herself flush under the intensity.

But still—

As sweet as it felt, and even though it spoke volumes, she needed to hear it. She needed to know. So, she slowly pulled away from him and opened her eyes. She waited until he opened his before she looked down at her hands. “W-What about you?”

He gave her a small smile as he tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear. “It’s always been you, Anne…my Anne with an E.”


End file.
